This is something I've been wanting to document for a long, long time.
It isn't often you come across someone like Erin Cleal, a good friend of mine with an incredible talent for all things beautiful. Her long-time studio in East Vancouver is an art piece on it's own, a sanctuary for lost and found things, a place where tiny forgotten pieces of treasure are magically transformed into the usable, and the beautiful. Impossibly organized, you can spend hours peering through her things, amazed at her eye and ability to see something not for what it is, but for what it could be. Erin is, in my opinion, the Queen of Re-use, and I would like to, without further ado, take you on a tour of the magical place that is completely her.
A well-rounded artist with a knack for cutting and pasting, Erin is meticulous in her studio's organization. Really, with the amount of stuff she has, I can't imagine trying to function in a studio that wasn't so tightly dialed. She thrifts with incredible luck and talent, using everything that you could imagine to store her treasures and materials. From tupperware to jars to suitcases and spice racks, everything - I mean EVERYTHING is labeled, sometimes plain and sometimes quirky with what you'll find inside. Exploring her finds and keeps is like stepping directly into her mind.
Erin's love for her tools of her trade is apparent in quantity alone. She is the one who has every scissor, every brush, every pen that you could desire. The tiniest piece of hard wear you could need, she's got. In silver and in brass.
Systematic and beautiful in every way, I think the best part about visiting Erin's studio is finding something you would've never thought to be useful, and there it is, with purpose, and you're saying "I would've never thought of using that thing that way."
Thank you to my lovely friend Erin Cleal for letting me document her space and write about her and the place that is most definitely at the heart of it.
xo stitch
